


Something To Remember Me By

by canadianstuck



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 04:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17697350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadianstuck/pseuds/canadianstuck
Summary: Krem gives the Inquisitor a gift that's confusing at first. What could he mean by such a simple thing?





	Something To Remember Me By

“It’s something to remember me by,” he says, as he shoves the little book across the table.

It looks like a notebook, at first. Smooth leather, holding together thick pages. A cord wraps around it twice.

“Why do I need something to remember you?” Trevelyan says. He frowns down at the book, brushing fingers across the leather as if it might still be alive, as if it might spring away at the slightest startle.

Krem shrugs. “Because I’m a mercenary.” He stands and reaches out, as if he wants to cup Trevelyan’s cheek, as if there’s something more trapped behind his lips.

There’s more both of them want to say. Neither does. The silence swells, fills the room, and then Krem leaves.

The book, for its part, remains unopened on the table. Trevelyan wonders if it’s recording this little interaction. How long it’s been in Krem’s pocket. If it saw last night, the drinking, and dancing, and stumbling up to his room. Nothing happened.

It almost did.

Slowly, he pulls the book towards himself. Trepidation fills his gut, in a way it has not since he first debuted in Orlais and had to ruin the party by revealing the plot. His fingers brush over the spine, looking for a title that isn’t there and never was. If he opens it, what will it say? Will it be the guide to winning over Krem? His clumsy words and clumsier advances don’t seem to do the trick. Krem catches him watching training, catches the flush on his cheek and the eagerness in his eyes. He knows Krem sees. Last night, they were so close.

And yet.

There are jobs to do. Duties to attend. The crisis is over, but the Inquisition remains. It is an army, operating independently of a state. There are nobles to be soothed, deals to be made, caravans to be guarded in and out of Skyhold. There are whispers of red lyrium again, of a darkness that is swirling in the Dalish camps.

Trevelyan knows all this, knows it is more important than a little leather book.

He knows, and yet he hesitates.

The ringing of the midmorning bell startles him from his stupor, and he hurries from the room. The book lies unopened on his table. There is a rush to make himself look presentable, to make himself look as if he was not up three quarters of the night talking to a man he wants, who he sometimes would swear wants him too. He mostly succeeds, and the representative from the Orlais crown scoffs only once before the meeting begins.

The sound of the training yard echoes in the open air. Trevelyan came to the gardens for peace, and to tend his plants, which are doing well even in the chill of the mountain air. He has come to this place many times, tying up a wilting elfroot plant, and finding peace in the quiet murmur of conversation. Today though, the ringing of steel reminds him too much of the smell of cinnamon and ale, and the colour of Krem’s hair in the golden light of morning. It overwhelms his thoughts, and even his plants bring him no peace.

Cullen asks him for a game of chess, and it startles him so much he breaks off a leaf on the rashvine he is tending. “A game would be pleasant,” he says.

It isn’t. Cullen reports on the state of the arms and the army, on who is doing well and why. He pushes over a sheaf of paper, and Trevelyan can only stare at it, because it reminds him of an unread book on his table. Cullen asks twice if he’s alright, and he nods and laughs and brushes it off, because of course he’s alright. He’s the Inquisitor. He’s steered the world through a half-dozen crises already, and surely he cannot be unmoored by a night in which nothing happened.

He cannot stop thinking though, about what could have happened, if he were braver. If he understood flirtations as well as he understands the feel of a sword in his hand.

If only.

After escaping Josephine’s polite enquiries over dinner, Trevelyan makes it back to his room. The book is lying on the table, untouched, and the dark leather seems to drink in the light from the candles that a servant has lit. Again, he brushes his hand over it. Again, he wonders after the would haves and could haves of the night before.

The book is still unopened when he goes to bed.

There is a rare pause in the morning. Sunlight pulls him from sleep, and the curtains practically bleed it. There are no meetings though, not until after lunch.

Before dinner, he is supposed to inspect the Chargers, effectively raising them from mercenaries hired by the Inquisition to some of its elite warriors. Trevelyan will have to face Krem. Krem, in his quiet but direct way, will ask about the book.

Trevelyan has three options. He can say he hasn’t read it, and that he suspects will end any possibility of affection. He can lie and say he has, but Krem seems too sharp to be fooled by such an easy ruse. Or he can read it, and if Krem asks—when he does—Trevelyan can be honest.

After all his silly hopes, he owes Krem honesty, at the least.

The book is waiting for him. The leather is almost warm to the touch as he carried it back to bed. It seems easier to read it there, as if the blankets will protect him from, from…

From whatever he’s reading about. From the disappointment or the hope it will bring.

From himself.

There is nothing written on the first page, and Trevelyan frowns at it. Could he have put himself through such distress, only to find there was nothing worth his time at all? The annoyance keeps him staring at an empty page for a long moment. Eventually, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and flips to the second page.

On the left, there is a pressed elfroot leaf. It has been expertly prepared, so that rather than being brittle, or faded, it is still the deep green of freshness. It has been fixed to the page somehow, in a way Trevelyan can’t determine, but leaves him all the more sure of Krem’s cleverness. There are words on the right. A date, and a single sentence.

_In the garden. For health potions._

It puzzles him. He is deeply familiar with all the uses of elfroot, health draughts first and foremost. He does not need them explained, not when he grows them—The date.

Trevelyan counts backwards until he reaches it, and then brushes his fingers across the life. It is the day he first met Krem. He was in the garden, tending his elfroot and all the rest.

Krem asked what it was for. He still recalls blinking up at the unfamiliar face, the genuine curiosity there. “It’s for health potions, mostly,” he had said.

Confused, but not unpleasantly so, he flips the page. There’s another pressed plant, this time the distinctive stalks of blood lotus. Another date. More words.

_The ship sank. We survived._

It’s a day Trevelyan remembers well, when he had to pick between an alliance with a country that could have carried the whole Inquisition to safety, and the safety of two dozen men and women, fighting on the beach. They had put their trust in him, and who was he to sacrifice them on the altar of the Inquisition?The fact that Krem was down there had swayed him just a tiny bit more, just enough to sound the retreat. The alliance was lost, but his people were saved, and among them was a man with easy smiles and easier laughter, if he went looking for it in the tavern after dark.

Arbor blessing next. To make magic stronger. Everyone is welcome here. It was one of those conversations, in the tavern. Trevelyan had more than he should have, and someone had questioned why he had planted arbor blessing. The scowl was involuntary, but the words were not. “Everyone is welcome here. Building walls is what made us necessary in the first place. We have plenty of potions to help our soldiers, but nothing for our mages, and that’s not right." He didn’t even know Krem was listening.

The book goes on and on, plants that are as familiar to him as his own mother, and plants that are so rare he has to wonder how Krem found a three blossom stem to press. Each one with a date, and each one with a sentence, maybe two.

Each one suggests that Krem has been looking and listening for as long as Trevelyan has.

The midafternoon bell rings, and he’s so startled he almost drops the little book. Carefully, he sets it on the bedside table, and then hurries to dress before practically running down the stairs. He doesn’t want to be late, not for this. Not for an inspection and not for Krem.

It’s sunny, and the sun catches Krem, standing beside the Iron Bull. Trevelyan has to look serious, but a small smile still quirks his lips as he catches Krem’s eye. He is eager to ask, about the book, about what Krem wants, about all of it, but there is a form to attend to.

At last it’s done, everyone’s dismissed, and he manages to pull Krem aside, in the corner of the yard. “About the book…” he starts, and then stops, unsure of where to go from here. He is eager and terrified all at once, of what Krem might say or do. It’s as if the wrong word, the wrong breath will knock this all out of alignment.

“What about it?” Krem asks with a small frown, his normal easygoing-ness made a little sharper by the hesitation in his voice and the tenseness in his shoulders. “It’s… I…” Trevelyan swallows and tries again. “It’s wonderful, Krem.”The tenseness loosens, and Krem’s frown inches towards a smile. “You think so?”“No one has ever given me a gift like that before.”“You deserve it.” Krem looks a little startled by his own words, as if he is given voice to a thought he has had but tried not to acknowledge.

Trevelyan lifts a hand quietly, calmly, brushing his thumb over Krem’s cheeks. “I wanted to kiss you, before, when we were talking in my room,” he murmurs.

Krem tilts his head into the touch. “You should then.”That’s all the invitation Trevelyan needs, and kissing Krem is like setting off a firework in his chest. It’s easy to get lost in it, to drown in it, to need more of it. So easy. So right. “You should come up to my room after dinner,” he murmurs when he pulls away. “For more conversation. And more kisses, if you’ll have them.”He wakes late the next morning, having stayed up far to long, eager to spend as much time as possible with Krem. Krem, who’s gone. Trevelyan’s frown lasts only until he spots the book on his bedside table, open to a new page. It’s a pressing of crystal grace, and yesterday’s date. The sentence on this one is simple.

_It’s wonderful._


End file.
